Social Justice and the Bridesmaids

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Matthew 25:1-13 - where is social justice in the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids?


I had the question enter my mind of why Jesus gave specific numbers to both groups. He could've said a group of bridesmaids, and said some were wise and the rest were foolish. He could have said seven were wise and three were foolish. Or vice versa. But he said five and five.


My first guess at why he did this, that he said specific numbers and that both numbers were equal and that the numbers totaled up to all of them, so there were none who were neither wise nor foolish, is to indicate the equal opportunity everybody has to choose wisdom or foolishness. And as soon as the phrase "equal opportunity" entered my mind, I contrasted it with the current concept, as defined in certain circles, of social justice. One of the corollaries, if not at the core, of this idea of social justice is that everybody gets the same result. In this parable the bridesmaids do not all get the same result. But they apparently had the same opportunity. The difference was in how they applied or did not apply wisdom to their situation.

Losing the Maturity of a People

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A people can mature in long, developing ways that individuals cannot. As a people matures over centuries, individuals and groups within that people will be tempted to discard the slowly-developed elements within the people's culture, the elements that actually make the people mature.

 

Individuals are only as mature and developed as the people group if they cling to the long-developed principles. Every individual, and even the group as a whole, can abandon the people's maturity at any time. We do not automatically, unstoppably retain the maturity of our people just because we enter the world at a later point in time than others who carry forward the people's patterns and principles of maturity. We can always lose the maturity of our people if we reject the principles that brought the maturity.

The Lowest Seat

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It takes inner security (rootedness in God's love for oneself) to voluntarily accept the lowest seat, the place of dishonor. Part of it is knowing that you are accepted and loved by God, and that's all you really need. But another part of it is also knowing that God will make all things right. He knows where credit is due, who is worthy or appropriate to receive honor, versus people who receive honor but really shouldn't. He has the power to set things right in this world if He sees fit, but has actually promised to set things right in the next life.

Stumbling Because of Jesus

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 “And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me."”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11:4-6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

http://bible.com/59/mat.11.4-6.esv

 

What if Jesus meant by this, "I am doing all these miracles. They are real, and are really happening. Blessed are those who hear these facts and do not stumble in their faith because they don't receive any of these miracles. Why did Jesus let John rot in prison? Was it because He had no miraculous power? No, look at all these amazing things He was doing. I don't see Jesus explaining why here, but He does recognize that Jesus' selectivity about who He gives miracles to could cause some people to stumble.  Blessed are those who are not offended when I don't give them a miracle. Blessed are those whose faith does not rely on they themselves receiving miracles from God's hands.

The Soft Martial Law of the Civil Rights Act

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The civil rights law that forced people to (formally and superficially, at least) treat African-Americans with equality and fairness (for example, not having a separate area for "Colored" and "White" in a restaurant, or refusing service to Blacks) was an anomaly in American history, and reflected a failure of the culture to deal with the problem of inequality. Other minority groups (every other one?) have entered the country, been marginalized and mistreated, but eventually have become accepted. They did not need the soft martial law of a civil rights act to force their integration and assimilation.


The plight of African-Americans has been unique, since they did not voluntarily enter the country, were enslaved and broadly and persistently dehumanized, and decades went by without a significant change. The civil rights act was arguably justified, but only because of the unique position and history of African-Americans. No other group has been as profoundly oppressed and dehumanized in America, or for as long.


Thus to no other group should that radical overreach of governmental power be extended. The culture is supposed to handle assimilation of minorities, and is supposed to do it humanely, with love and wisdom. By structure, definition, nature, and design, a government is good at holding a gun. That's ultimately what it always does, and the backstop for all its action. A culture, individuals, and even small groups of people can base what they do on love; not a government.


If the culture at large is working its way through a solution to a particular aspect of a minority's being mistreated (or at least believing it is being mistreated), then the government will only cause problems by exerting its power, "pulling a gun,"in the situation. No minority in America (except arguably Native Americans) can compare their mistreatment to that historically of African-Americans. The solution to their situation was uniquely draconian; it's not appropriate or constructive for freedom to move any other minority into the same extreme solution.


Another way of putting this is that the civil rights act was not the beginning of a new way to define how America and the government should treat all minorities going forward, but was a uniquely appropriate response to an historically unique situation. To act like every group requires the same heavy-handed solution is to minimize the unique oppression and suffering experienced by blacks over the centuries.

Waiting to Be Exalted

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“I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭18:14‬ ‭NASB‬‬

http://bible.com/100/luk.18.14.nasb

 

Do you trust God enough to wait for Him to exalt you? Can you patiently humble yourself? Do you really believe that He will give you the amount of exalting you truly deserve? Justice is getting what one is owed. Can you set aside the demands that seem sensible to you and trust that God will build and bring justice into your life?

The Best Use of Our Gifts

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What am I supposed to teach our children about their responsibility to use their gifts? What is the highest, the purest, the best use of our gifts? The first answer that comes to mind and has throughout my life is using gifts for big audiences, which implies maximizing visible effects, fame and acclaim. But I don't believe that's the best barometer for "success." So what is? I don't know how to answer it for myself, so how can I give them an answer, advocate for a particular package with a bow on top?


I believe, and can see more clearly all the time, that being a husband and father is the most important work I can be doing. But is that because I believe the net positive effect will be bigger by my work through them, or because it meets the criteria for some other barometer?


How should I answer this question?

The Clueless Obedience of John Baptizing Jesus

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 “Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, 'I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?' But Jesus answering said to him, 'Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.' Then he permitted Him. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.'”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭3:13-17‬ ‭NASB‬‬

http://bible.com/100/mat.3.13-17.nasb

 

Did John make the dove fly from heaven? Did John make God speak from heaven? Did John make Jesus pleasing to God? Did John understand exactly why Jesus said he had to baptize Him? No. No to all of these. But the baptizing of Jesus had to be done for this event to roll forward. John didn't make all this happen. But he had to obey to trigger the rest of the event. Jesus was already pleasing to God. God the Father already loved Jesus. The Spirit was ready to descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove. But the experience that made visible all of these elements was John baptizing Jesus. John had to obey, even though it made no sense to him. He had no idea what would happen after he obeyed, since he couldn't even imagine the act of obedience itself.

 

We, too, have no idea what God has in store for our obedience, what He stands ready to cascade as consequence of us obeying His commands. The consequences of our obedience may be as mere as we imagine them, or they could be immense beyond our imagining. We don't know the other pieces of God's puzzle that await the fitting-together with each other and with our own obedient pieces. Only He knows. We can trust Him, His love for us, and the commands He gives.

The Raft and the Ship

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God does not set us adrift on the raft of our own feelings. He offers that we sail the seas of life on the steady ship of the Truth of Himself. He is Love, which sacrifices mightily for the beloved, and He asks those who follow Him that we also sacrifice ourselves for those that He loves.


He offers the steady Ship, but to board that Ship we have to stop resting our lives on, relying on, our feelings as though they were reliable enough to save us from the storms. We have to stop leaning our weight on that raft, and start stepping onto His Ship. But when we do that, we can't just go where our feelings tell us to go anymore. We must go where He leads us. We still have our raft with us, and could take it overboard anytime, jumping back into the seas with a non-seaworthy vessel, just for the privilege of sailing our own direction. But the longer we're on this Ship, the more we should find the flimsiness of the raft unacceptable, and reject it as a viable option.

Layers of Decisions

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Civilization can be thought of as layers upon layers of decisions. When we make a decision, we take into account a host of different factors, depending on the nature of the individual decision. The final decision, if made well, is in a sense a summary and a distilling of all the factors that were considered in the making of the decision.  When we make a decision that can be considered as "built upon" previous decisions, then the later decision, if done well, can be considered to be a distillation of previous decisions as well as new information.

 

In today's culture, it is not uncommon to discard old decisions, in essence to discard the distillation process performed by earlier generations of deciders. But unless we have somehow rigorously taken into account all of the factors and information and experience that earlier deciders pulled together to make their decisions, our fresh decisions will carry a significant amount of ignorance, and thus be weaker decisions.

He Makes Me Choose

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I imagine a moment through the eyes of one of Jesus' followers...

 

"I look at Jesus and He looks normal. No halo, no glowing. Then He performs a miracle. He just does it. Again, no trumpets, no glowing, it just happens. And He walks on. And I stand there for a moment more, looking at the healed person, trying to decide if it really happened. But He walks on, and I'm following Him, so I need to keep walking, too.

 

"But my mind is still back there, at the site of the healing. Did that really just happen, right there, right in front of me? He keeps walking. Eventually it fades into line with all those other memories. And at some point I have to decide. He makes me decide. Belief in Him isn't automatic. I have to choose. He leaves me no other way. I can choose how I make sense of the memory. He gave me the gift of being there when He performed the miracle. But He doesn't force me to hold on to the memory. He doesn't force me to use that experience and its memory as the interpretive cornerstone of everything else I know. He makes me choose."

An Ideal of Community

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I want to be part of a community that actively seeks out the situations where the deepest convictions of its members are in conflict, where the community has developed "sides," and works diligently to build bridges of peace between them. Not to declare one side right the other side wrong, but to make sure that both sides are really hearing each other as children of God, humans made in the image of God, worthy of dignity and respect.

Art = Naming Creation

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Creating art, at its best, is more like Adam naming the animals than it is like creating idols. What (would have?) happened if Adam, when he saw a particular animal, was so overwhelmed with the beauty, etc of that creature that he didn't want to limit himself to just a few syllables. Instead, he wanted to write a poem, a song, or perhaps had a visual idea in his head that represented the animal more directly and precisely than just a few syllables could have sufficed to do. Maybe he wanted to paint a painting, or carve a sculpture, that depicted what he had just seen and experienced, all as a means of giving glory to God, all as an extended exercise in naming Creation. Maybe. 

Recognizing the Spiritual

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Do you ever wonder if what we experience as we perceive other people has sources and causes that are more than just physical? If I see a pretty girl, and something within me awakens or is energized, is that just hormonal activity, simply a physical urge? Am I just responding selfishly to the physical beauty I physically perceived in her? Or is it possible that when we turn our attention to another person, with our eyes and any other physical faculties like smell, etc., is it possible that we are also turning our spirit towards them, and part of the experience we have as we perceive them is also some sort of spiritual perceiving that is separate from the physical perception we experience?


That certainly seems possible, given what I/we believe about the nature and composition of what makes a human being. But as with so many spiritual things, I don't know how to separate the spiritual from the physical. I don't know how to identify what is happening to me at a spiritual level, how to discern, how to separate, not for the purposes of dissection and killing what is within me, but for the purposes of understanding and recognizing what is real, so it may be honored, or rejected, or addressed in some other fashion.

Suffering and Purpose

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It is the way of Jesus that the suffering of God's servants, God's ambassadors and representatives, is the way that glory goes to God, that our inherent and unavoidable purpose is fulfilled. If you doggedly make avoidance of suffering your highest priority, you will be misdirected away from the purest, most direct way that you can bring glory to God and thus be completely fulfilled.

 

It's not that you should be seeking out suffering, or that all cases of suffering maximize bringing glory to God (shall we increase all opportunities for pain, so that God's glory may abound?). But as you do your best to pursue God's will, to hear and obey His guidance, if it leads into or through suffering, you shouldn't be surprised or dismayed. You shouldn't fall into the trap of our era that believes that suffering is evidence of waste, worthlessness, error, or the absence of God. Instead of working to eliminate all instances of suffering, expect God to use your suffering to produce meaning, healing, and the advancement and fulfillment of His purposes.

 

(Derived from ideas in "How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels"  )